


"A Terrible Night!"

by clickingkeyboards



Series: Miss Wells' Murder Mysteries (AKA Daisy's Government Adventures) [1]
Category: Murder Most Unladylike Series - Robin Stevens
Genre: Beginning of a Beautiful Friendship, Detectives, Gen, Miscellaneous Government Fuckery, Spies & Secret Agents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-19
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-18 00:41:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28858266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clickingkeyboards/pseuds/clickingkeyboards
Summary: Daisy spends the summer holidays of 1936 in Boston, investigating a crooked businessman in the hopes of uncovering something deeper that would throw her into an international embezzling scandal.As always seems to happen when she is on a case, an old associate appears, followed by a corpse.(Title from a 1930s Boston newspaper about a murder case)
Relationships: Alexander Arcady & Daisy Wells
Series: Miss Wells' Murder Mysteries (AKA Daisy's Government Adventures) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2116236
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	"A Terrible Night!"

I was quite occupied with pretending to be utterly interested in the architecture of the building when the door opened and a parade of men in suits far too well-cut came through the door, boisterously crying things about business that were painfully inaccurate. I swallowed down my corrections to pen in a letter to Hazel later on and turned around, greeting them with a nod and bobbing a curtsy.

_ Now,  _ I thought crossly to myself as Mr Henock greeted me and introduced me as his secretary,  _ where is Mr Not-Darcy? _

I had given that nickname to a rather suspicious man talking to Mister Henock in whispered tones the previous evening, after I arrived at the Winnfield Estate, and I knew that it would give my dormmates back at Deepdean a chuckle when Hazel read aloud parts of my letter. As I was searching around the room for that particular sharp-faced man, I heard a youthful voice say, “Oh, Christ.”

“Would you be quiet?” Mister Not-Darcy snapped. He was a particularly unremarkable man who seemed to only appear when he spoke and the second I looked at him, I realised why somebody had reacted to my presence with so much surprise.

Beside him was a blond-haired boy with mismatched eyes and more swear words on the tip of his tongue. “Nothing, Father,” replied Alexander Arcady, averting his eyes from me. “I’ve suddenly realised that I forgot to bring my shorthand notebook from the car, I won’t be a moment.”

Coughing a discreet, “Fuck,” into my hand, I took my place walking behind Mr Henock and wondered how Alexander could look so interesting in comparison to his father, who was as visually compelling as paint flaking off wood.

* * *

The first meeting came and went without hindrance. I sorted documents obediently and passed Mr Henock files without question, and Alexander jotted in his shorthand notebook, filling no less than eight pages with the content of the meeting. When Mr Ogilvy-Grant (who, if I was to follow on the Pride and Prejudice theme, reminded me of Mr Collins) declared that all the men were going to go and continue their discussion over lunch, I breathed an internal sigh of relief. I do hate sitting still during meetings, it feels as if somebody is putting pressure on every part of my body and I could burst from that feeling like a feathered pillow hit over my head in a Deepdean dorm room.

“I think I’ll sit out on the luncheon, Father,” Alexander said, his hand going up to his hair. “I… I promised Hazel a phone call.”

“If you must,” his father said, waving a dismissive hand at him. When Mr Hancock questioned what Alexander was talking about, his father got to the explanation before Alexander could open his mouth. “A fancy of his, some pretty foreigner or another. I don’t understand his interest in people like her myself. She’s from  _ the Orient _ , you know.”

“Father!” Alexander scolded, but he was silenced by another gesture. I could feel myself burning.

It was like letting out a breath when they finally left the room. I flew out of my chair in an instant and whirled in a circle around the room, waving my hands about to dispel the fizzing tension lodged deep down in my wrists.

“Miss… Ranbury, was it?” Alexander asked, a twinkle in his eye. “That meeting was dreadfully trying, may I take you to lunch as compensation?”

Putting my hand through his offered arm, I teased, “What was that your father said about a fancy of yours?”

He gave me a pointed look. “You know, I’ve heard that Mr Henock sometimes does business dealings with a dreadfully high-class family from Egypt – the El Maghrabis, if you’ve heard of them?”

I stuck my tongue out at him and straightened my back. By the time he opened the door, I was the picture of a young secretary being escorted by a young man who had kindly offered to take her out for a meal.

“A date, Master Arcady?” the man on the door remarked, and I felt Alexander’s muscles tense underneath the pads of my fingers even as he smiled. “I thought you had a girlfriend back in the mother country?”

“Hardly a date, I merely offered Mr Henock’s secretary a meal as compensation for the meeting. You know how they can all go on.”

We were bidden to leave his grasp of questions and descend the steps into the street. Alexander hailed a taxi and asked for a very American-sounding street, shutting the door as he spoke. The moment that the driver began speeding through the streets of Boston, we looked at each other and burst out laughing.

“How fantastic to see you!” he said warmly, and I was surprised that I agreed. Since he stopped looking at me in that way, he has been almost entirely pleasant to be around. “What brings you to Boston?”

“Secretarial work, of course,” I replied, raising my eyebrows at him. “Where are you taking me to dinner?”

“You’ll see.”

* * *

The taxi driver pulled up on the street that Alexander had requested, thanking him and smiling as Alexander gallantly helped me out of the car. When I saw that the small place he had led us to was called  _ The Wells Diner _ , I thumped him as hard as I could while he laughed at me.

“Sorry! It is genuinely good, though!”

I rolled my eyes. “Why Hazel likes you is  _ beyond _ me,” I scolded him, and he grinned.

Much to my annoyance, the food actually was decent, even if we ate sandwiches with our fingers and laughed with our mouths full, sipping childish lemonade and splitting a cake paid for out of Alexander’s pocket change because I had forgotten my purse.

“You aren’t so bad, you know.”

“Thanks, Daisy,” he said, and then he bent his head to whisper. “You’re investigating… what, exactly?”

There was no point dancing around the topic. “Mr Henock and his associates, Alexander.”

A look came onto his face then, an impressively aware and frightened one. “You mean… my father?”


End file.
